Camping with Grandpa

My Dad decided in May he wanted to go camping in Winthrop.  He had to take Jake along and decided he was brave enough to take Aiden too.  I finally got the pictures and they just make me laugh.  They did not get nice weather.  It rained the whole time and my Dad promised them 2 sleeps and they were not letting him get out of it.

This picture brings back old memories for me.  This train is a half way mark that we stopped every year when we were growing up.

They found some snow in the mountains on the way.

My Dad had to buy the boys rain gear because they were going through so much clothes.  The look so cute!

Fishing in the rain.

There camp site.  

They spent a lot of time inside the tent hiding from the rain.

They didn't know who this was but he was nice enough to let them play in his canoe.

Aww. . . Just precious.

They all had so much fun on this wet seemingly miserable camping trip.  My Dad might even be brave enough to try it again next year!

1st Day of Preschool

Aiden started preschool this week!  I can't believe how fast the time has gone.  

Does this boy look excited or what!

 

I was a little nervous about what was going to happen when I dropped him off on his first day.  I really thought that he was going to be sad and cry. . .but he jumped right in and started playing and didn't even care that I left.

He loved every minute of preschool.  I was expecting a lot of chatter about what his day was like from him but didn't get near as much as I expected. 

My conversation with him.

 'What was your favorite part?'  "Playing with balls & hockey." 

 'What did you learn about?'  "Jesus." 

 'Did you learn about anything else?'  "I saw my eyes."

'Did you make any new friends?'  "Yeah."

'What are their names?'  "I don't remember."

Camping

We were able to go camping last week at our friend Bob's house.  He has a cabin in Birch Bay and he let us come out to stay with him.  We set up a tent in is back yard and had a wonderful time.  We were camping but still had all of the luxuries of a beautiful house.   Kitchen, bathroom, jetted shower, morning cartoons for the kids, private beach. . .

The front of his house.

His front porch where we spent every morning drinking our coffee and looking at the water.

Our beautiful view from his front porch.

Our cozy little tent.

One day we took the kids to mini world where we went mini golfing and Mike and Aiden got to go in the go carts.  We were a little disappointed that the train wasn't running but had so much fun.  After we went out to lunch and then to the Candy Shop to get some ice cream.  We ended up spending $25.00 on candy!

Makayla REALY enjoyed her ice cream.

He had a shared stairway down to a private beach.  There were about 92 steep stairs but it was so worth it having very few people around you on the beach.

On our last day there the tide finally went out far enough for us to go clam digging.  It was so much fun to watch the boys dig for those clams.

These are the holes we would look for.

Then Bob and Mike would start digging.

Mike really getting into it.

Sucess!!!

The clams were HUGE!  We caught about 10 of them and they made great clam chowder.

Next we dug for steamer clams.  We found quite a few of them and oysters too! 

The kids had a great time digging for anything they could find.  Makayla couldn't walk down the beach without pickup every shell and 'beautiful rock' she found.

Mike's prize boat 'The Minoe'.  They went out crabbing about 3 times every day and caught so many crab! 

I took this pic from Bob's porch.  I couldn't believe I could see them so well from there.

Some of our catch.

All in all we had a great camping trip.  We couldn't have asked for better weather and had a lot of fun friends come out and spend time with us while we were there.

Family Pictures

We went out to the beach with Ashley for family pictures a few weeks ago.  She did an awesome job.  Kayla was a little uncooperative but we managed to get a few good shots.

Meeting Ryker

My sister gave birth to a sweet little boy on August 25th.  He was 8 lbs.  5oz.  and very adorable.  His name is Ryker James. 

The day Ryker was born Mike stayed home with the kids so I could go in and meet him.  Then we were both able to go in the next day together. 

On Saturday we took the kids over to Jessie's house so they could meet him.  Aiden couldn't get enough of him and just loves having a new little cousin.

Makayla loved him too.  She was so excited to be able to hold her new baby cousin.